Alibi for Isabel: And Other Stories

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  It was ghastly, of course. Even mother looked unhappy.

  “I wish you’d eat something, Fred,” she said. “Try to forget the whole thing. It doesn’t do any good to go over and over it. You made her very happy. Always remember that.”

  Some time during the meal I asked him if anything had happened to upset Elinor in the spring. He stared at me.

  “In the spring? When?”

  “About Easter,” I said. “I thought she’d been different after that. As if she wasn’t well, or something.”

  “Easter?” he said. “I don’t remember anything, Lou. Except that she started going to that damned psychiatrist about then.”

  “Why did she go to him, Fred?” mother inquired. “If she had any inhibitions I never noticed them.”

  If there was a barb in this he didn’t notice it. He gave up all pretension of eating and lit a cigarette.

  “You saw him,” he said. “He is a good-looking devil. Maybe she liked to look at him. It would be a change from looking at me.”

  He went home soon after that. I thought, in spite of his previous protests, that he had resented the doctor’s good looks and Elinor’s visits to him. And I wondered if he was trying to build up a defense against her in his own mind; to remember her as less than perfect in order to ease his tragic sense of loss.

  I slept badly. I kept seeing Fred’s face, and so I was late for breakfast the next morning. Yes, we still go down to breakfast. Mother believes in the smiling morning face over the coffee cups, and the only reason I had once contemplated marrying Fred was to have a tray in bed. But at least she had finished the paper, and I took it.

  Tucked away on a back page, only a paragraph or two, was an item reporting that Mrs. Thompson had been shot the night before!

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I read and re-read it. She was not dead, but her condition was critical. All the police had been able to learn from the family was that she had been sitting alone on the front porch when it happened. Nobody had even heard the shot, or if they did they had thought it was the usual backfire. She had been found by her husband lying on the porch floor when he came home from a lodge meeting. That had been at eleven o’clock. She was unconscious when he found her, and the hospital reported her as being still too low to make a statement. She had been shot through the chest.

  So she had known something, poor thing. Something that made her dangerous. And again I remembered Margaret, going up the steps of the little house on Charles Street. Margaret searching for Elinor’s lipstick in the street, Margaret who had hated Elinor, and who was now in safe possession of Fred, of old Joe Hammond’s portrait, of Elinor’s silk sheets, and—I suddenly remembered—of Fred’s automatic, which had lain in his desk drawer for years on end.

  I think it was the automatic which finally decided me. That and Mrs. Thompson, hurt and perhaps dying. She had looked so—well, so motherly, sitting on that little porch of hers, with children’s dresses drying on a line in the side yard, and her hands swollen with hard work. She had needed some money in advance, she had gone to the doctor’s office to get it, and something had happened there that she either knew all the time, or had remembered later.

  Anyhow I went to our local precinct station-house that afternoon, and asked a man behind a high desk to tell me who was in charge. He was eating an apple, and he kept on eating it.

  “What’s it about?” he said, eying me indifferently.

  “It’s a private matter.”

  “He’s busy.”

  “All right,” I said. “If he’s too busy to look into a murder, then I’ll go downtown to Headquarters.”

  He looked only mildly interested.

  “Who’s been murdered?”

  “I’ll tell him that.”

  There was an officer passing, and he called him.

  “Young lady here’s got a murder on her mind,” he said. “Might see if the captain’s busy.”

  The captain was not busy, but he wasn’t interested either. When I told him it was about Elinor Hammond, he said he understood the case was closed, and anyhow it hadn’t happened in his district. As Mrs. Thompson was not in his district either, and as he plainly thought I was either out of my mind or looking for publicity, I finally gave up. The man behind the desk grinned at me when I passed him on the way out.

  “Want us to call for the corpse? “he inquired.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to call for a dead dog,” I told him bitterly.

  But there was a result, after all. I drove around the rest of the afternoon, trying to decide what to do. When I got home I found mother in the hall, looking completely outraged.

  “There’s a policeman here to see you,” she hissed. “What on earth have you done?”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the living room.”

  “I want to see him alone, mother,” I said. “I haven’t done anything. It’s about Elinor.”

  “I think you’re crazy,” she said furiously. “It’s all over. She got into trouble and killed herself. She was always headed for trouble. The first thing you know you’ll be arrested yourself.”

  I couldn’t keep her out. She followed me into the room, and before I could speak to the detective there she told him I had been acting strangely for the past few days, and that she was going to call a doctor and put me to bed. He smiled at that. He was a capable looking man, and he more or less brushed her off.

  “Suppose we let her talk for herself,” he said. “She looks quite able to. Now, Miss Baring, what’s all this about a murder?”

  So I told him, with mother breaking in every now and then to protest; about Elinor and the lipstick, about her appointment at her hairdresser’s shortly after the time she was lying dead on the pavement, and my own conviction that Mrs. Thompson knew something she hadn’t told.

  “I gather you think Mrs. Hammond didn’t kill herself. Is that it?”

  “Does it look like it?” I demanded.

  “Then who did it?”

  “I think it was her sister-in-law.”

  Mother almost had a fit at that. She got up, saying she had heard enough nonsense, and that I was hysterical. But the detective did not move.

  “Let her alone,” he said gruffly. “What about this sister-in-law?”

  “I found her in Doctor Barclay’s office yesterday,” I said. “She insisted that Elinor had fallen out the window. She said the floor was slippery, and she wanted me to try it myself.” I lit a cigarette, and found to my surprise that my hands were shaking. “Maybe it sounds silly, but she knew about the lipstick. She tried to find it in the street.”

  But it was my next statement which really made him sit up.

  “I think she was in the office the day Elinor was killed,” I said. “I think the Thompson woman knew it. And I think she went out there last night and shot her.”

  “Shot her?” he said sharply. “Is that the woman out on Charles Street? In the hospital now?”

  “Yes.”

  He eyed me steadily.

  “Why do you think Miss Hammond shot her?” he said. “After all that’s a pretty broad statement.”

  “Because she went there yesterday morning to talk to her. She was there an hour, I know. I followed her.”

  Mother started again. She couldn’t imagine my behavior. I had been carefully reared. She had done her best by me. And as for Margaret, she had been in bed last night with a headache. It would be easy to verify that. The servants—

  He waited patiently, and then got up. His face was expressionless.

  “I have a little advice for you, Miss Baring,” he said. “Leave this to us. If you’re right and there’s been a murder and a try at another one, that’s our job. If you’re wrong no harm’s been done. Not yet, anyhow.”

  It was mother who went to bed that afternoon, while I waited at the telephone. And when he finally called me the news left me exactly where I had been before. Mrs. Thompson had recovered consciousness and made a statement. She did not know who shot h
er, or why, but she insisted that Margaret had visited her merely to thank her for her testimony, which had shown definitely that Elinor had either fallen or jumped out of the window. She had neither been given nor offered any money.

  There was more to it, however. It appeared that Mrs. Thompson had been worried since the inquest and had called Margaret on the telephone to ask her if it was important. As a matter of fact, someone had entered the doctor’s office while she was in the hall.

  “But it was natural enough,” he said. “It was the one individual nobody ever really notices. The postman.”

  “The postman?” I said weakly.

  “Exactly. I’ve talked to him. He saw Mrs. Hammond in the office that morning. He remembers her all right. She had her hat off, and she was reading a magazine.”

  “Did he see Mrs. Thompson?”

  “He didn’t notice her, but she, saw him all right.”

  “So he went out last night and shot her!”

  He laughed.

  “He took his family to the movies last night. And remember this, Miss Baring. That shot may have been an accident. Plenty of people are carrying guns now who never did before.”

  It was all very cheerio. Elinor had committed suicide and Mrs. Thompson had been shot by someone who was practicing for Hitler. Only I just didn’t believe it. I believed it even less after I had a visit from Doctor Barclay that night.

  I had eaten dinner alone. Mother was still in bed refusing to see me, and I felt like an orphan. I was listening to the war news on the radio and wondering if I could learn enough about nursing to get away somewhere when the parlormaid showed him in. He was apparently not sure of his welcome, for he looked uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry to butt in like this,” he said. “I won’t take much of your time.”

  “Then it’s not a professional call?”

  He looked surprised.

  “Certainly not. Why?”

  “Because my mother thinks I’m losing my mind,” I said rather wildly. “Elinor Hammond is dead, so let her lie. Mrs. Thompson is shot, but why worry? Remember the papers! Remember the family name! No scandal, please. No—”

  “See here,” he said. “You’re in pretty bad shape, aren’t you? How about going to bed? I’ll talk to you later.”

  “So I’m to go to bed!” I said nastily. “That would be nice and easy, wouldn’t it? Somebody is getting away with murder. Maybe two murders. And everybody tries to hush me up. Even the police!”

  That jolted him.

  “You’ve been to police?”

  “Why not? Why shouldn’t the police be told? Just because you don’t want it known that someone was pushed out of your office window—”

  He was angry. He hadn’t sat down, and I made no move to do so. We must have looked like a pair of chickens with our feathers spread ready to fight. But he tried to control himself.

  “See here,” he said. “You’re dealing with things you don’t understand. Good God, why can’t you stay out of this case?”

  “There wasn’t any case until I made one,” I said furiously. “I don’t understand. Why is everybody warning me off?” I suppose I lost control then. The very way he was watching me set me off. “How do I know you didn’t do it yourself? You could have. Either you or the postman. And he was at the movies!”

  “The postman!” he said staring. “What do you mean, the postman?”

  I suppose it was his astonished face which made me laugh. I laughed and laughed. I couldn’t stop. Then I was crying too. I couldn’t stop that either. I could hear myself practically screaming, and suddenly and without warning he slapped me in the face.

  It jerked my head back and he had to catch me. But it stopped me all right. I pulled loose from him and told him to get out of the house. He didn’t move, however. It didn’t help to see that he had stopped looking angry; that in fact he seemed rather pleased with himself.

  “That’s the girl,” he said. “You’d have had the neighbors in in another minute. You’d better go up to bed, and I’ll send you some sleeping stuff from the drugstore.”

  “I wouldn’t take anything you sent me on a bet,” I said bitterly.

  He ignored that. He redeemed my cigarette from where it was busily burning a hole in the carpet—good heavens! Mother!—and dropped it in an ash tray. Then to my fury he leaned down and patted me on the shoulder.

  “Believe it or not,” he said. “I didn’t come here to attack you! I came to ask you not to go out alone at night, until I tell you you may.” He picked up his hat. “I mean what I’m saying,” he added. “Don’t go out of this house alone at night, Miss Baring. Any night.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, still raging. “Why shouldn’t I go out at night?”

  He was liking me less and less by the minute. I could see that.

  “Because it may be dangerous,” he said shortly. “And I particularly want you to keep away from the Hammond house, I mean that, and I hope you’ll have sense enough to do it.”

  He banged the front door when he went out, and I spent the next half hour trying to smooth the burned spot in the carpet and hating him like poison. I was still angry when the telephone rang in the hall. It was Margaret!

  “I suppose we have you to thank for the police coming here tonight,” she said. “Why in heaven’s name can’t you leave us alone? We’re in trouble enough, without you making things worse.”

  “All right,” I said recklessly. “Now I’ll ask you one. Why did you visit Mrs. Thompson yesterday morning? And who shot her last night?”

  She did not reply. She gave a sort of gasp. Then she hung up the receiver.

  It was a half hour later when the druggist’s boy brought the sleeping tablets. I took them back to the kitchen and dropped them in the coal range, while Annie watched me with amazement. She was fixing mother’s hot milk, I remember, and she told me that Clara, the Hammonds’ cook, had been over that night.

  “She says things are queer over there,” she reported. “Somebody started the furnace last night, and the house was so hot this morning you couldn’t live in it.”

  I didn’t pay much attention. I was still pretty much shaken. Then I saw Annie look up, and Fred was standing on the kitchen porch, smiling his tired apologetic smile.

  “May I come in?” he said. “I was taking a walk and I saw the light.”

  He looked better, I thought. He said Margaret was in bed, and the house was lonely. Then he asked if Annie would make him a cup of coffee.

  “I don’t sleep much anyhow,” he said. “It’s hard to get adjusted. And the house is hot. I’ve been getting rid of a lot of stuff. Burning it.”

  So that explained the furnace. I hoped Annie heard it.

  I walked out with him when he left, and watched him as he started home. Then I turned up the driveway again. I was near the house when it happened. I remember the shrubbery rustling, and stopping to see what was doing it. But I never heard the shot. Something hit me on the head. I fell, and after that there was a complete blackout until I heard mother’s voice. I was in my own bed, with a bandage around my head and an ache in it that made me dizzy.

  “I warned her,” mother was saying, in a strangled tone. “The very idea of going out when you told her not to!”

  “I did my best,” said a masculine voice. “But you have a very stubborn daughter, Mrs. Baring.”

  It was Doctor Barclay. He was standing beside the bed when I opened my eyes. I suppose I was still confused, for I remember saying feebly:

  “You slapped me.”

  “And a lot of good it did,” he retorted briskly. “Now look where you are! And you’re lucky to be there.”

  I could see him better by that time. He looked very queer. One of his eyes was almost shut, and his collar was a wilted mess around his neck. I stared at him.

  “What happened?” I asked dizzily. “You’ve been in a fight.”

  “More or less.”

  “And what’s this thing on my head?”

  “T
hat,” he said, “is what you get for disobeying orders.”

  I began to remember then, the scuffling in the bushes, and something knocking me down. He reached over calmly and took my pulse.

  “You’ve got a very pretty bullet graze on the side of your head,” he said calmly. “Also I’ve had to shave off quite a bit of your hair.” I suppose I wailed at that, for he shifted from my pulse to my hand. “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “It was very pretty hair, but it will grow again. At least thank God you’re here!”

  “Who did it? Who shot at me?”

  “The postman, of course,” he said, and to my rage and fury went out of the room.

  I slept after that. I suppose he had given me something. Anyhow it was the next morning before I heard the rest of the story. Mother had fallen for him completely, and she wouldn’t let him see me until my best silk blanket cover was on the bed, and I was surrounded by baby pillows. Even then in a hand mirror I looked dreadful, with my head bandaged and my skin a sort of yellowish gray. He didn’t seem to mind, however. He came in, big and smiling, with his right eye purple and completely closed by that time and told me I looked like the wrath of heaven.

  “You’re not looking your best yourself,” I said.

  “Oh, that!” he observed, touching his eye gingerly. “Your mother put a silver knife smeared with butter on it last night. Quite a person, mother. We get along fine,”

  He said I was to excuse his appearance, because he hadn’t been home. He had been busy all night with the police. He thought he would go there now and clean up. And with that my patience gave way completely.

  “You’re not moving out of this room until I know what’s been going on,” I stormed. “I’m running a fever right now, out of pure excitement.”

  He put a big hand on my forehead.

  “No fever,” he said. “Just your detective mind running in circles. All right. Where do I start?”

  “With the postman.”

  So then he told me. Along in the spring Elinor had come to him with a queer story. She said she was being followed. It made her nervous. In fact, she was pretty well frightened. It seemed that the man who was watching her wherever she went wore a postman’s uniform. She would be having lunch at a restaurant—perhaps with what she called a man friend—and he would be outside a window. He would turn up in all sorts of places. Of course it sounded fantastic, but she swore it was true.